![]() ![]() Had The Last of Us Part 2 committed to an open-world concept or more diversity in the action sequences, or better characterization, it may have truly been a perfect game. It’s a shame that after a few short hours of exploring, your horse is blown to smithereens by a landmine. There are ruins to be combed through, letters and notes full of lore to discover, and even a shotgun tucked away in a bank.Įllie explores the ruins on the outskirts of Seattle from atop her horse, Shimmer. You’re given a map and the freedom to wander, which felt like a genuine surprise. For instance, you’ll spend much of Ellie’s first day in Seattle entirely on horseback, exploring a small “open-world” area of the city. There are moments that represent a leap forward for video game storytelling, even for a AAA title. Last of Us 2 is a pretty game, but it by the end, you just want it to be over. But the core loop of looting and shooting before squeezing through some crack in the wall gets repetitive when trapped on the railroaded plot. There are new guns, characters, weapons, and enemies to fight. There’s very little that feels innovative in the gameplay. The Last of Us 2 has developer Naughty Dog’s signature polish, but it all feels a bit outdated despite the beauty rendered in the pixels. Even if characters look more realistic than ever, they often don’t feel like it. Most characters in The Last of Us 2 feel one-note by comparison. Their decisions are sometimes astonishing, but they’re always believable. ![]() The big picture gets more compelling the longer you stare it, but the characters seem to lose depth as this franchise continues.Įllie, Joel, and other Last of Us characters feel “real” because of their nuanced array of emotions. ![]() The Washington Liberation Front is headquartered in a stadium.)īoth of these women are enraged by the trauma that's happened to them in life, justifiably so.Ībby is a powerful hero, even before you think she's the villain. Abby is also a super-buff badass who spent three solid years power-lifting in the Seahawks’ workout room. We’re meant to see the obvious mirror to Joel and Ellie’s dynamic in The Last of Us. Hailing from a Seattle community where everyone is supremely kind, particularly to dogs, Abby embarks on an overlapping adventure where an innocent teenager helps quell her simmering rage and restore a sense of humanity. Ellie is so consumed by violent revenge that she’d blindly risk, and spend, the lives of her friends. She’ll later growl obscenities like “Eat shit…!” at a woman whose throat she’s just slit. Over the course of the game, Ellie grows more enraged. Even if the parallels drawn between these characters are about as subtle as Abby’s 7-iron, they’re still artfully done. Those seemingly divisive narrative choices produce a result that’s brilliant. At face value, it seems infuriating: A total stranger kills our hero from the first game, and then we’re supposed to play as her for 12 hours!? These shocking, broad strokes were the focus of a devastating batch of leaks that surfaced in April. Last of Us 2 is her revenge story in equal measure. Joel killed Abby's father at the end of the first game, and then we’re asked to play as Abby for the second half of this one. The Last of Us 2 starts out as a revenge story but spends an exhausting 24 hours of gameplay trying to convince us that this is not supposed to be fun. The sequel steps back into this world five years later when a moody, adult Ellie embarks on a quest for revenge to the ruins of Seattle after a new character named Abby murders Joel with a golf club while Ellie is forced to watch. A brilliant, surprising story with hollow characters The price we all pay for Joel’s sentiment is The Last of Us Part II, which metes out the consequences of the first game’s perfect ending. The game doesn’t cast judgment on his choice, so we’re left to answer this moral question ourselves: Did Joel do the right thing? So Joel murders dozens of people to save Ellie. Ellie, who’s immune to the virus, is the key to developing a vaccine, but the vaccine would kill her. In the first Last of Us, protagonists Joel and Ellie feel like real people in a dismal world where the Cordyceps brain infection wiped out most of the population. Joel's gotten even older in 'The Last of Us Part II.' Naughty Dog / Sony Entertainment LLC ![]()
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